ReasonGRE

I hadn’t looked at this thread in a while so I missed the question that you asked Afternoon Tea. You are probably long gone, but in case this is still relevant, here’s my 2 cents: The quant sections of the GMAT and GRE are pretty similar…the GMAT is harder and the 2 tests have 2 different question types (DS on the GMAT and QC on the GRE), but in terms of the problem solving questions its pretty similar. There are actually some statistical concepts that are tested on the GRE that don’t appear on the GMAT, but aside from this omission and aside from the difference in level of difficulty I think its actually useful to use GMAT PS questions, especially if you have exhausted most of the GRE questions out there. The PS questions in the GMAT official guide go in order of difficulty, so if you do the questions that are in the easy to medium range they are a pretty good proxy for GRE questions. Just be aware that you will miss some of the statistical and data analysis stuff and that you are not doing any quantitative comparisons. I also think that if you ran out of Reading Comp stuff for the GRE, GMAT RC passages in the Official Guide are not a bad substitue. I would avoid the passages that are really business/econ related and be aware that some of the question types on the GRE don’t appear on the GMAT (like vocab in context, and select all that apply), but stylistically the passages are very similar and most of the question types can be found on the GRE as well.

Thanks Taylor for sending along the supplements. I wanted to respond publicly on this thread for whoever is interested in knowing more about the supplements. They are indeed much better than everything else out there that I have seen from other test prep companies and are also an improvement on what was in the Manhattan GRE books themselves, so I am very pleased to see some questions that come much closer to mimicking the types of questions that are on the GRE. The sentences definitely get at the reasoning/critical thinking aspects of the exam, something that is missing from most other non-ETS materials out there, so they are a good additional source for questions. In my opinion, the vocab is still on the hard side and I think that one can expect slightly easier vocab on the actual test, but the questions in the supplements are really a big improvement over the ones that were originally in the Manhattan GRE books and the vocab in particular is much more reasonable and much closer to the mark. If I had to recommend questions outside of the ETS book (i.e., if you have exhausted those questions....which won't take very long!!!) I would definitely recommend using these over any other material that is out there.

Just get the Kaplan premier book. It is $20 on amazon and you get access to 5 tests.

For practice tests (and this is a good way to work on timing) I like Kaplan and ManhattanGRE. They are not perfect and are certainly not as accurate as Powerprep, but if you need additional practice, these are the ones I would probably use. The ManhattanGRE ones are definitely harder than the real exam, sometimes in unrealistic ways (like ridiculous vocab and quant questions that are beyond what you would see on the exam), but they are pretty good tests. For example, I had like 5 wrong on the MGRE test I took but 0 wrong on the actual GRE. There were some glitches with the tests when I used them last (it gave me a quant score of -2!!!) but they may have ironed those issues out by now.And on the topic of how to do math questions faster, I think part of this comes from doing lost of questions and just getting better at recognizing how best to approach different questions. But its also about time management and understanding that every question is worth the same amount so it doesn't make sense to spend lots of time on any question. The nice thing about the new exam is that you can skip questions and go back and you get bet that most test takers don't properly utilize this functionality so you give yourself a big advantage over other GRE folks if you do!

That's a really good question. Periodically they need to update the percentiles because overtime they tend to shift. For example, 500 on the old GRE was well below 50th percentile even though 500 was the middle score on the 200 to 800 scale. That wasn't always the case. I don't know if it was ever 50th percentile, but that was probably the aim initially. But as people prepare harder and get better at understanding how to improve on the test, the percentiles start to creep up so that more and more people have higher scores. That was actually part of the motivation for recalibrating the test. But unless I am mistaken, your percentile will stay what it is on the score report. Even if it were to change (and again I don't think it does) it would be a tiny shift. Its a long process for the percentiles to shift in big ways.

I guess if you had a ton of time to devote to GRE Prep and you wanted to play around with Data Sufficiency for the challenge of it, it would be good practice in the art of Quantitative reasoning. And Data Sufficiency has some similarities to QC's (answer choice D on QC's is essentially the same concept as DS). But Data Sufficiency really presents its own unique challenges as well, so I think a person would do much better to just focus on Quantitative Comparisons and the specific ways that one can attack those questions. Again, I think it would only make sense for someone who is preparing so much for the GRE that they need lots of extra material and want to try Data Sufficiency partly for the challenge of it, but it wouldn't be the most efficient way to prepare for the GRE, in my opinion, and could definitely confuse some people.

Irene, like Tex said, 164 is an excellent score. It equates to a 790 on the old exam. Its a little confusing because 166 to 170 all equate to 800...this is because the new GRE is a bit harder than the old one, allowing for greater differentiation among top scorers, but 164 is still a great score. And the reason you can know the percentile is because you are not being compared to people who took the test on that day or something like that (a la the SAT). You are being compared to people who have taken the test since the new administration began, so the computer can instantly give you a score and a percentile to go with it. Tex, I'm not an admissions expert, but I think your chances should be very good. Good luck!!!

Good luck tex. I don't know what kinds of programs you are applying to, but anecdotally, when I first took the GRE (12 years ago) I got very high Quant and Analytical scores (back then there was a multiple choice analytical section) but a mediocre Verbal score. I applied to PhD programs in History and although there was one school I didn't get into, the one that I actually attended gave me a special fellowship, in part because of my high GRE scores, despite the fact that I had just an ok Verbal score. ANd obviously for a PhD program in history, the Verbal score was the one they were most interested in. This is all to say that although your Verbal score is not fantastic, your Quant score is, and that may be enough to get you into the program(s) of your choice.

Hey Tex. Sorry you are disappointed, but congrats on a very good score. Obviously the Quant in particular is quite high! Its interesting to read your feedback since I know you were concerned about how similar the ETS material would be to the actual test, and the Powerprep test in particular. And I'm glad to see that you agreed that those materials were really similar to the test and that in the end the Quant felt easy. I'm not sure if the score you got was similar to what the Powerprep gave you, but at least the questions were! Its funny how hard some of the test prep companies make their questions...freaks people out, but unnecessarily so. Anyway congrats on a really good score.

I think its pretty comparable. If you did well on the PowerPrep I think you should be pretty optimistic. I'd be curious to hear what others think, but that is my opinion.

Hey arctic belle. That's a pretty amazing score too, so congratulations. The first thing I'd recommend is that you get a better sense for what score you need for the schools you are thinking of applying to. 170V and 165Q is nearly through the roof, so its hard for me to imagine a school not be happy with those score, but I suppose if you were applying for engineering programs and wanted to get into the #1 school, maybe you'd like to have a slightly higher quant, although it obviously can't go much higher. And if you do retake, you have to consider the possibility that your Verbal might not be 170 again, and although schools might just take your highest section scores, others will just take your best overall score on one administration or maybe even your most recent. If you do decide to retake, I'd recommend is that you use the free diagnostic service that ETS offers in order to get a look at your test and what type of questions you got wrong, time spent, etc, so that you can focus in on your weaknesses. I blogged about it on my website so feel free to take a look, but I think this would be a very important step. In terms of harder quant, there is so little really good material out there for the new test in my opinion. Using GMAT questions wouldn't be a bad idea, but like PEMDAS said, you'll need to stick only with the Problem Solving questions....don't even look at Data Sufficiency because its a totally different animal. If you do want to use GMAT questions, I would recommend the Official Guide, since it is real GMAT questions that have been retired. The explanations in that book are a little lacking, however, so if you do use the OG, you might want to get ManhattanGMAT's OG companion, which gives better explanations to all the Quant questions in the OG. Just keep in mind that you won't be doing Quantitative Comparisons at all and that there are a few statistical/data analysis things that appear on the new GRE but that do not appear on the GMAT, so there might be a few gaps there as well.

LightningRod, the test is section adaptive because although you will have a range of questions on each section, from easy to hard, the second section will have a slightly greater proportion of easy, medium, or hard, depending on how you do on the first section. That second section will then be weighted more heavily or less heavily depending on the proportion of easy, medium, or hard questions on it. I wrote a blog post about this on my website that you may want to take a look at...I go into some detail there about how adaptive the sections actually are, based on my experience on the test. My second quant section wasn't that much harder (a fact that is backed up by the diagnostic that ETS offers), despite the fact that I didn't get any questions wrong, so you might think that its just a function of the number of questions correct. But unless ETS is lying, if that second section does have a higher proportion of hard questions, then you are getting more credit for right answers on that section.

Hey Sporadic. First, regarding TexasGuy's suggestion, its an interesting idea to completely skip a particular section to negate the effect of a potentially lower score on that section and I've never really thought about it that way, but i'm not sure if I would do that. Many schools will take your highest score, or sometimes your most recent test, but they might not take a Verbal score from one test and a Quant from another so I don't know if I would play around with that. You might just go for it again and if you don't score higher, most schools will probably just take your highest anyway. If you are thinking of retaking, a few suggestions....One is to get a look at the free diagnostic that ETS provides....I blogged about this on my website (I posted about it on the forum too but I think I provided more info in my blog) so feel free to take a look, but the short of it is that you'll be able to see what type of questions you got wrong and, more importantly, the amount of time spent on each question. And that leads me to my second suggestion...if you retake, I would spend some more time taking practice tests to hone the art of time management on the new test. The ability to skip around and mark questions is a really big advantage if used right, but its something you need to practice. And to answer your question, all of the questions are worth the same amount (within a particular section) so there is really no reason to spend undue time on something that you are struggling with for whatever reason, no matter whether its a hard question or an easy one....again, this gets back to the art of time management and making sure that you use your time wisely to maximize your potential and your score.

I don't think that schools will necessarily explain on their website that they will take the average. They may, but they also may not mention anything, so again I think the safe thing to do is call and inquire. I recently tutored a girl who told me that she contacted the school that she was applying to and although there was no mention of it on their website, she was told that they will average her scores! Also, regarding looking at the aggregate, I am sure that some schools will do that. But its my understanding that a lot of the time the people making the decision might not even look at the score report. They will see the score that you enter into your application, but very often its an administrative assistant who verifies that score, etc., so I don't think that the number of times a person has taken the exam is usually held against them.

Hey ANDS. I would encourage you to do some reconnaissance, both on the question of a retake and the issue of your scores and whether they are adequate. Look at the program's website and see if you can get any information there. If not, contact the program office and ask them. They should tell you their policy on multiple scores and whether they take the average or the highest. They may also tell you that they weight certain sections more heavily or that they don't consider a particular section at all.